Friday 25 June 2010 15.11 EDT
First published on Friday 25 June 2010 15.11 EDT

Forget the nonsense because the players surely will. Wayne Rooney and Mesut Ozil are not looking at each other and seeing maps of the Ypres salient or images of a ruined Dresden. The only worthwhile consideration this weekend is that England versus Germany almost always produces a match which burns itself into the memory – for the quality of the contest, if not invariably for the calibre of the football.

Airy suggestions that the significance lies entirely on one side are wide of the mark. Franz Beckenbauer and Philipp Lahm confirmed this week that they and their compatriots also see these as special occasions. "We've all grown up watching these matches," the 26-year-old Lahm said after the two nations had been paired together yet again, meeting on Sunday in Bloemfontein for a place in the quarter-finals. "It is a big history. Every one of us can be happy it worked out this way."

For Beckenbauer, who took part in the games that laid the foundation of the modern rivalry, "they are always the biggest, most unforgettable games in our history. Football fans can only look forward to this classic."

Given recent history, it may come as a surprise to learn that the two countries, having played each other 27 times in competitive and friendly matches over the past 80 years, stand at 12 wins apiece (if we count, as we must, Germany's two penalty shoot-out victories at the end of drawn matches). Only three matches – in 1930, 1972 and 1982 – have ended without a result. Perhaps the least of Sunday's considerations is that, by the end of the afternoon, one of them will have taken the lead in the all-time standings.

Beckenbauer was there in 1966, aged 20, when England, on home soil, won their only victory to date in a major international tournament, after Alf Ramsey had banished the disappointment of conceding a late equaliser at the end of normal time by telling his players: "You've won it once – now go out and win it again." Before that Wembley final the two countries had met eight times, with a record of seven wins for England and one draw – a three-all result in the very first fixture of all, in Berlin in 1930.

Germany's first win against England – as West Germany, of course – came in a friendly in 1968, Beckenbauer scoring the only goal in Hanover. Two years later another of his goals set the team on their way to the famous 3-2 victory in the World Cup quarter-final in León, after Ramsey had taken off Bobby Charlton and started to lose the plot. He was present, having taken over the captaincy, when West Germany denied England a place in the semi-finals of the 1972 European Championship. A crushing 3-1 win at Wembley in the first of two legs, masterminded by the debonair No10 Günter Netzer, was followed by a goalless draw in West Berlin in which Ramsey, needing goals, inexplicably sent out a side containing four defensive midfielders.

Lahm was seven years old and Beckenbauer had become the team's manager when the next significant meeting took place, in the semi-final of the 1990 World Cup. After the two sides had fought out a draw, penalty failures by Stuart Pearce and Chris Waddle in the shoot-out took West Germany – in their last tournament before national reunification – through to a victory over Argentina in the final, while all England wept along with Paul Gascoigne.

The penalty shoot-out is the principal memory of that Wembley evening, 14 years ago tomorrow, when the reunified Germany deprived England of a place in the final of Euro 96. After five England players – Alan Shearer, David Platt, Pearce, Gascoigne and Teddy Sheringham – had converted their kicks, Gareth Southgate saw his effort saved before Andy Möller – having received the yellow card that would keep him out of the final – secured the win.

But the penalties were the least of it. If there is one England-Germany match that you would want to sit through again, this was it. After a build-up comparable in frenzy to the one stoked up over the past few days the two sides played the game the way it is supposed to be played. After taking a lead in the third minute when Tony Adams flicked on Gascoigne's corner to Shearer, who stooped to head home, England switched off for the only time in the match and 12 minutes later saw Stefan Kuntz evade Pearce to score the equaliser. Then it was football, football and more football, quality and endeavour in perfect equilibrium, all the way to extra-time.

At that stage the so-called golden goal, an already discredited concept, would have settled matters, but neither side showed the least sign of fear. For 30 minutes they threw everything at each other with renewed vigour and redoubled courage, chances coming and going at both ends – to Kuntz, Möller, Gascoigne, Platt, Adams, Christian Ziege, Steve McManaman and the outstanding Darren Anderton – as a contest marked by the sheer generosity of the players' effort wound towards its excruciating denouement.

"I am proud of the whole team," Terry Venables said afterwards. "It can be a cruel game but it can also be wonderful." What a final it would have made.

Subsequent encounters have not reached a similar level of competitive balance. At the finals of Euro 2000 the worst Germany side in living memory, managed by Erich Ribbeck, lost 1-0 to Kevin Keegan's England, for whom Shearer scored while the respective fans laid waste to the centre of Charleroi. Neither side managed to get through to the knockout stages. That autumn Germany got their own back on a drizzly day at Wembley when Didi Hamann's long-range free-kick caught David Seaman by surprise and England said goodbye both to the Twin Towers and to Kevin Keegan.

Almost a year later Sven-Goran Eriksson's tenure as Keegan's successor reached what was to remain a pinnacle of euphoria when England went to Munich for a World Cup qualifier and won 5-1. It was as thrilling to witness as it clearly was to play in but the opportunism of Eriksson's forwards, notably that of Michael Owen, was certainly encouraged by a curiously uncharacteristic performance from Rudi Völler's defenders.

Since then there have been just two friendly encounters, finishing 2-1 to Germany at the new Wembley in August 2008 and 2-1 to England in Berlin's Olympic stadium last November. Tit for tat is the way things have gone in recent years, the winners of the past six matches – since Euro 96 – going Germany, England, Germany, England, Germany, England: an ominous sequence for Capello and his side, although the Italian is unlikely to believe in anything other than his own power to influence events.

Of all the football matches between England and Germany, however, the one with the greatest impact on Sunday's events may have taken place in Malmo on 29 June last year, when Germany beat England 4-0 in the final of the European Under-21 Championship with a side that included four players likely to start in Bloemfontein: Ozil, the playmaker, Sami Khedira, the defensive midfielder, Jérôme Boateng, the defender, and Manuel Neuer, the goalkeeper. Deprived at the last minute of Michael Ballack's vast experience and authority, but with Lahm doing an excellent job as stand-in captain, this is a Germany with a look of freshness about it. And if it comes to a shoot-out, they may be glad that Andreas Köpke, the man who dived to his right to save Southgate's kick 14 years ago, is now their goalkeeping coach.

The shadows of Richard Hofmann, known to his fans as King Richard, the scorer of all three German goals in that inaugural 1930 friendly (and the first non-Scot to score a hat-trick against England), and of Arsenal's David Jack, the first £10,000 footballer, who saved England's face with the late equaliser that day, stand behind Sunday's meeting. Beside them a parade of figures lines up, from Bobby Moore to Steven Gerrard, from Beckenbauer to Lahm: the Charltons, Hursts, Keegans, Shiltons, Linekers and Shearers, the Seelers, Hallers, Overaths, Bonhoffs, Sammers and Klinsmanns, who all knew what the players of the current squads are experiencing this weekend. History is indeed an intrinsic and unavoidable part of this match. Just not that kind of history.